Association of International Property Professionals – Scam Artists or Genuine?
Would you buy a used car from this man?
This is Paul Owen, founder member and CEO of the Association of International Property Professionals. The AIPP gets an awful lot of good press. This article in the Daily Mail recently being one such example and the recent write up on citywire being another.
And to read these write ups, you could be forgiven for thinking that the AIPP is some sort of consumer watchdog, supported by the government, with powers to shut down rogue real estate agents and have them publicly thrashed, whilst taking their ill-gotten gains to help the needy.
This is about as far from the truth as it gets. As far as we can ascertain, the only requirement for membership in the AIPP is being able to stump up the joining fee, which, according to Mr. Owen, varies from £360 to £3,600, depending on the size of the company although he also claims the AIPP has turned down 19% of membership applications and we do wonder just exactly why these “unacceptable,” agents are still in business. Were their bank balances too small or their ethical standards too low? Should the latter be the case, we would have expected some sort of public announcement from the AIPP stating, “these estate agents are not good enough to join the AIPP – avoid them like the plague.” Unlikely scenario.
No, what the AIPP is doing is trying to generate confidence in their members and sway the public into believing they are guaranteed a fair deal from members. The Daily Mail is helping to provide this image. Coincidentally, the Daily Mail is a founding member of the AIPP, but there is no mention of this in the article.
On the surface, it’s a laudable goal – protecting the public from unscrupulous estate agents – but the AIPP has NO powers, and according to some, there are already too many dodgy members for comfort. As hard as we tried, we could find no list of founding members, board members or details of Mr. Owen’s credentials on the website. They do have a nice address though. Addresses in London don’t come much more impressive than New Bond Street. We have discovered that Mr. Peter Robinson, ex of Ocean Estates, (Times online story)which found itself in trouble for misrepresentation and involvement in the “White Whale,” money laundering operation in Spain back in 2004. Some doubt has been expressed about the ethical standards of some of the current members including “Parador Properties,” which has a list of complaints against them as long as your arm here, at the eyeonSpain site and “Bulgarian Dreams,” which should not be confused with the other company of the same name that provides an entirely different sort of dream.
If you are interested in finding more about the AIPP their extremely pretty website is here, and if you would like to hear some other views on the topic, there is a property forum discussing the subject here at spanishpropertyinsight’s site. Comments welcome.
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1. Flog ‘em John strikes again Magistrate declares St Lucia: ‘A nation of thieves!’
http://www.stluciastar.com/NewsHome/tabid/179/newsid890/2464/Default.aspx
St. Lucian lawyer Callistus Vern Gill, operating in juxtaposition with two well know scam artist Peter Leroy John and Brother Leo Winston John, are suspected of forging land documents and signatures, then present such documents in St. Lucia courts as legally binding bill of sale, in order to acquire land legally owned by four generations of families.
Our attempt to investigate the fraudsters is posted below:
Modern-day Land thieves on the Island of St. Lucia:
The following is my recollection of what transpired and personal experiences during our stay on the beautiful Island of St. Lucia
Two of my colleagues and I flew down to your island on June 16, 2008, after receiving information from reputable and confidential sources in Washington DC, with firsthand knowledge of what appears to be systematic patterns of fraudulent land stealing scams, by several persons in conjunction with a handful of sleazy lawyers, supported by corrupt land registry employees and members of your island’s judiciary.
The objective of our trip was to interview several parties who apparently had fallen victim to two known con artists, Peter Leroy John and his brother Leo Winston John, from the village of La Croix Chaubourg/ Babonneau.
We spoke to several persons who were quite knowledgeable to the John brother’s scam, and in fact we made several attempts to interview the Johns on June 17, to no avail.
On June 18 2008, we attempted again to make contact with Mr. Leroy John and he agreed to meet with us at his residence that afternoon. Upon arrival, we were asked to wait outside by a young lady who said her father would join us shortly. To our surprise, two black men wearing military style camouflage, exited Mr. John’s residence and walked toward us in an intimidating and confrontational manner. One of the men wearing dark sunglasses with no name tag on his uniform, told us he was with the police and was here to warn us about interfering with issues that “was not our concern and we should leave the island immediately if we did not want to end up sleeping with the fish”.
He demanded to see our passports which we told him had been accidently left at the hotel. He threatened us with arrests if we did not leave the island within 24 hours.
Based on the information we were able to gather during our short stay on that lovely island, we are convinced that this story warrants an in depth investigation to expose what appears to be a well organized gang of land swindlers operating with complete impunity from the island’s criminal justice system.
Whoever notarized those bill of sale should be arrested immediately.
Nicholass last blog post..The Security Provided By Auto Bill Of Sale Forms
hi speaking of scam artists on that island. i would like everyone to be careful when dealing with architects and engineers in St. lucia. i was overly charged by an individual
I cannot believe that the Semeis, Sheila and Arthusia are so bitter that their trespass has been brought to an end by the courts that they would stoop so low to have such an article printed on the web.
You omitted to include the fact that all the documents presented by you were rejected by the courts and you were told never to return with them. Don’t you have irrefutable proof of ownership that would expose the fraud in court?
Shame on you all, supposedly intelligent folk.